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China has removed Bo Xilai from his post as Chongqing's Communist Party leader, state media Xinhua news reports.
The 62-year-old was a strong contender for promotion to China's top rungs when the party changes its leadership later this year.
However, a scandal erupted when his former chief of police spent a day at the United States consulate last month.
Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang will replace Mr Bo, said the Xinhua report.
The move comes just a day after the end of the country's annual parliamentary session, when Mr Bo's absence from a meeting sparked speculations about his future.
After a long silence, he spoke last week about the incident with police chief Wang Lijun, answering questions from journalists at a meeting on the sidelines of the parliamentary session.
He said he had not imagined Mr Wang would run off. It came suddenly, Mr Bo said.
"I feel like I put my trust in the wrong person," he added, speaking at a meeting of Chongqing delegates to the par…

Terago limited, the agribusiness subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc has revealed that its plant with a capacity to produce 26,500 tonnes saves the Nation about $8 million (N1.3 billion) foreign exchange annually on reduction of orange juice concentrates, mango puree and mango concentrates importation.

Jide Adedeji, CEO Teragro disclosed this during a facility of the factory in Makurdi, just before it was commissioned by President Goodluck Jonathan.

According to him, Nigeria spent $55 million (N8.7 billion) on importation of juice concentrate in 2007, and with what we are producing; foreign exchange spent on importation could be conserved by ten percent in a year.

Against the general notion about the quality of oranges produced in the country, he said: ‘‘People think that something is wrong with the use of our orange; the taste is not good, the yield is low which is not tr…

ISLAMABAD: A high level delegation led by Secretary Commerce Zafar Mehmood will participate in Joint Trade Committee (JTC) meetings in New Zealand and Australia from March 15-20.

Agriculture cooperation, double taxation agreement, investment cooperation, capacity building and developing institutional linkages are on the agenda of the JTCs meetings.

Pak-New Zealand JTC in Wellington, New Zealand is being held under a bilateral Trade Agreement signed in 1990.

However, it could not hold its first meeting up till now. It is after persistent efforts by the Ministry of Commerce that the inaugural session of this Committee has now been scheduled for March 15-16, 2012.

Both sides will hold discussions to work out arrangements to enhance bilateral trade and identify areas for cooperation, especially in agriculture and dairy sectors. Both sides will also deliberate on ways to establish institutional linkages between the two countries…

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Southern Command commander detailed the challenges facing Southcom, which has responsibility for U.S. military relationships in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Working with other U.S. federal agencies, the command has focused on a concern that permeates the region: transnational organized crime, which the general said “is seriously impacting citizen safety in Central America, especially Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.”

Transnational crime rings “threaten to overwhelm law enforcement capacities, and in an effort to reduce violence and halt the spread of these criminal groups, these countries have deployed their militaries in support of law enforcement organizations,” he said.

In recent years, officials have expressed increasing concern about the influence of Central American street gangs, known as “maras,” in South America; but while street gangs are on the rise in the region, they are a different beast.

On May 25 last year, 19-year-old Peruvian Oscar Barrientos shot and killed his father in their home in Callao, a city just west of Lima. When Peruvian police arrested him last month, however, his confession was less shocking than his reported motive. According to officials, Barrientos considered himself a member of the Mara Salvatrucha -- also known as MS-13 -- and may have killed his father as part of an initiation rite into the gang (see photo, above, of his tattooed lower lip).

This revelation set off a wave of speculation in Peru on the influence of the Central American street gang in the country, and prompted local police to claim that Callao is home to at least one MS-13 crew of about 20 individua…

A new web tool has been developed to help improve the accuracy and extent of land use and forest cover information.

The Geo-Wiki Project is a global network of volunteers who wish to help improve the quality of global land cover maps. Since large differences occur between existing global land cover maps, current ecosystem and land-use science lacks crucial accurate data (e.g. to determine the potential of additional agricultural land available to grow crops in Africa).

Volunteers are asked to review hotspot maps of global land cover disagreement and determine, based on what they actually see in Google Earth and their local knowledge, if the land cover maps are correct or incorrect.

Their input is recorded in a database, along with uploaded photos, to be used in the future for the creation of a new and improved global land cover map.

Mangos taste so good that people forget they are also healthy! Discover how the “king of fruits” can help you, plus fascinating trivia and a few mango cautions and concerns.

Health Benefits:1. Prevents Cancer: Research has shown antioxidant compounds in mango fruit have been found to protect against colon, breast, leukemia and prostate cancers. These compounds include quercetin, isoquercitrin, astragalin, fisetin, gallic acid and methylgallat, as well as the abundant enzymes.

MANILA, Philippines — Sad but true: tons of food go to waste daily in many parts of the country while millions of Filipinos in urban areas remain underfed and malnourished.

This fact nagged at me while covering the 2010 elections in Ilocos Norte, a province known more for thrift than waste.

We were shocked by the amount of wasted food we witnessed; giant mango trees lining Ilocos highways were all laden with ripe fruit falling on the roads and sidewalks by the thousands. The highways were carpeted with yellow fruit mashed by vehicles speeding by.

In many parts of Northern Luzon, mango farmers find it unprofitable to harvest mangoes in late summer when the selling price is lower than the cost of harvesting and transporting the fruit to the market. So they leave the trees, and the fruit, alone.

The same attitude is evident in thousands of hectares of tomato farms in late summer when tomato prices fall b…